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What Goes Down Must Come Up
What Goes Down, Must Come Up is the 33rd episode of The Venture Bros. and is part of Season 3. Plot An accident involving a giant drill sends Dr. Venture and Brock into the basement of the Venture Compound, where Jonas Venture Sr.'s secrets have remained for thirty years. Cultural references * The supercomputer is named M.U.T.H.E.R., a reference to the computer MU-TH-R 182 aboard the Nostromo, in Alien. Visually, the supercomputer control room, the M.U.T.H.E.R. acronym lettering and the physical form of the computer itself (especially the slowly rotating, semi-spherical "eye") are references to the supercomputer "Colossus", from the 1970 film Colossus: The Forbin Project. M.U.T.H.E.R.'s digitized voice and its potentially deadly insistence on speaking to its creator also recall a memorable incident in Colossus. * Numerous visual references are made to music from the 1980s and 90s, as the Rustys have access only to VH1 Classic in the underground complex, and dress accordingly; several of them resemble musicians as they appear in music videos, including David Bowie's appearance as the pierrot in Ashes to Ashes, Trevor Horn's appearance in Video Killed the Radio Star by The Buggles, Michael Jackson's appearance in Thriller (song), Art of Noise in their Close (to the Edit) video, and Keith Flint's appearance in Firestarter by The Prodigy. * Doctor Orpheus makes the Order of the Triad action figures from old Mego dolls- Jefferson Twilight's is a repainted Falcon and The Alchemist's is made from a Spock doll, with a bald spot. * Colonel Horace Gentleman sees a version of himself with a man in a rat suit, similar to the gentleman with the man in a dog suit from the finale of The Shining. Thereafter, blood pours through the tunnels, similar to the elevators from the film. * Kano's rapidly shaking head is based on a special effect popularized in the film Jacob's Ladder. * The plot of the episode bears a resemblance to Wargames and Beneath the Planet of the Apes. * The Marvel Comics character that Brock finds Dr. Entmann to resemble is most likely Ant Man. Connections to other episodes * After changing his pants, Jefferson Twilight wears Dean's Spider-Man pajama bottoms. Later in the epsiode, Twilight mentions that he doesn't want to change them again and end up in Aquaman underwear - Hank's preferred underwear. * Further information is provided about Jefferson Twilight in this episode. His discolored eye, which he calls "The Blood Eye" allows him to track vampires. His mother was taken by marauding Blaculas when he was 10 years old, which most likely explains his career. He served as a tank commander in the US Marines and raises carrier pigeons on his roof. *While hallucinating, Col. Gentleman sees what appears to be himself engaged in an illicit activity with the rat-costume villain from the Guild of Calamitous Intent promotional video seen in "Fallen Arches". Production notes * One of the animation directors (Kimson Albert) has a "nickname" inserted into his credits. The nickname is an unusual line or word from the preceding episode. For "What Goes Down, Must Come Up" the credit reads Kimson "Blacktion" Albert. * The orphans from the tour are quite obviously the same designs as the day-camp children from the episode "The Buddy System" and they are even wearing the same clothes. References What Goes Down, Must Come Up